www.cnn.com
This was despite Mueller's determination that they had been in regular contact during that time frame.
Excellent workFor anyone who needs context on what's happening with Roger Stone:
Stone is a longtime Trump friend, and one of the first people Trump told he was running for POTUS in 2016. Stone was also a longtime business associate of Paul Manafort, Trump's now imprisoned campaign manager who made millions between 2006 and 2014 working for a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine. Stone was also a friend and neighbor of Tony Fabrizio, a pollster who worked for the Trump campaign, and whose proprietary polling data on key battleground states was ultimately shared with the Russians by Manafort. Stone had done consulting work for Trump for years, and their relationship was such that Manafort recently said "it's hard to define what's Roger and what's Donald."
In mid-2016 -- just a few days after Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner met with Russians in Trump Tower to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton -- it was revealed that Russia hacked the DNC and obtained stolen emails. Russia began publicly releasing the stolen materials through "cut-outs" to give themselves plausible deniability over the hacks. The primary cutouts were an online persona named "Guccifer 2.0," and Wikileaks, founded by Julian Assange.
Stone spent much of the second half of 2016 attempting to contact Guccifer and Assange (Wikileaks), trying to either obtain access to the stolen emails, or to find out the timing of the releases to get the information to Trump's campaign. Stone had his own "cutouts", including Jerome Corsi and Randy Credico, but also communicated some on his own. Stone tweeted publicly about Guccifer (calling him a "hero"), and wrote an article at one point claiming that Guccifer, not Russia, was responsible for the hacks. Stone also exchanged private messages with Guccifer on Twitter.
In 2017, Stone was interviewed under oath by the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation into Russia's interference into the 2016 election. From that interview, Stone was later indicted, then a jury of his peers found him guilty of (1) lying to Congress about 5 separate topics, (2) obstructing a congressional investigation, and (3) witness tampering. All pertaining to his lies about contacts with Russian cutouts.
The DOJ sentencing memo is a document wherein the government's prosecutors handling the Stone case makes recommendations to the judge about what Stone's sentence should be, within certain sentencing guidelines for federal judges' consideration in issuing a sentence. The judge is not bound by the DOJ recommendation, but their recommendations can be influential. The defendant also files his own sentencing memo.
The DOJ's original sentencing memo on Stone shows that he lied about five topics, all designed to conceal his communications with the Trump campaign and his own associates about Wikileaks:Stone knew Credico was not the cut-out during the time frame -- Corsi was -- and knew Credico's testimony on that issue would take him down. Stone falsely telling the House that it was Credico also allowed for the destruction of numerous texts that further impeded the House's investigation. Stone then engaged in an aggressive pressure campaign to convince Credico to lie or take the 5th -- witness tampering -- culminating in this lovely exchange:
- Stone lied when questioned about who his back-channel was to Wikileaks during an important time-frame, claiming it was Credico, when it was really Corsi;
- Stone lied about the fact that he had directed Corsi to “get to Assange” and to “get the pending Wikileaks emails”;
- Stone falsely claimed he did not tell members of the Trump campaign about his conversations with the Corsi and Credico regarding Wikileaks, when in fact he had communicated with Rick Gates, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, and Erik Prince about Wikileaks;
- Stone lied about whether he discussed Wikileaks with Corsi or Credico;
- Stone lied about whether he had emailed third parties about Assange, and whether he had documents, texts, or emails about Assange;
The DOJ's original sentencing memo asked for 7-9 years for Stone. The guilty pleas and convictions of other Trump associates have resulted in cooperation arrangements whereby the convicts provide prosecutors information on "bigger fish" in exchange for leniency.
With respect to the information Stone has to offer, Trump is likely the only bigger fish the feds are interested in. Trump knows this. While Stone was contacting Assange via cutouts, Trump was publicly praising Wikileaks and asking Russia to find missing Hillary emails. Trump was being briefed by the FBI that Russia was behind the hacks, but publicly claiming it was not Russia. Trump refused to be interviewed under oath by Mueller, but later told Mueller in writing that he "spoke by telephone to Roger Stone from time to time during the 2016 presidential campaign," but that he did not recall any of the specifics of what they discussed
The harsher the sentence for Stone, the more pressure there is to flip on Trump, and the harder he is for Trump to pardon. Trump knows all of this; of course, the right wing campaign to convince Trump defenders to feel sorry for Stone ("poor guy was dragged out of bed at 5:00 AM, blah blah blah") is not an accident (same for Flynn, Manafort).
This morning, Trump tweets furiously about the 7-9 year recommendation, then the DOJ -- headed by Trump lackey Bill Barr -- comes out and changes its mind on the sentencing recommendation. Suddenly, all 4 DOJ prosecutors on the Stone case but under Barr's authority resign, apparently in protest to direction from authorities in DOJ. The implication, which has yet to be confirmed, is that Barr ordered the prosecutors to back down on the recommendation and they chose instead to resign. It's not 100% known whether Trump issued orders directly to Barr, whether Barr simply understood the order from Trump's tweets, or whether it's something else. What it looks like at this point is that Trump's influence is causing the DOJ to rot from within while he attempts, yet again, to elevate himself above the law.
The Stone case is yet another example of why the dismissive line about the "3 year Russia collusion hoax" is such utter garbage. So many of these people knew our election was being attacked by an enemy, and instead of reporting it, they did everything they could to encourage it to continue. The revelation of Stone's behavior by itself would vindicate the entire probe in terms of legitimacy. I can only hope that this destructive behavior takes Trump's approval down into the low 40% approval area (or lower) for good. The people mourning the destruction of the rule of law under Trump tonight are reacting appropriately.
Great. Links and attribution to the sites you copied, pasted and compiled that manifesto from?
Fortunately, you do not order me around here.
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